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I think I have a few games...

 
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:27 pm    Post subject: I think I have a few games... Reply with quote

Cool More than some, not as many as others... But over the last few years I've been adding to my collection, and not inventorying it... So I have no idea where I stand...

That's about to change.

I literally have not seen my entire collection in one room, out of storage boxes, in over 10 years. I've seen large portions of it, I've dug through all the boxes repeatedly, but never all of it, at once... I'm about to have access to a large area for an extended period of time where I can finally rectify this... The entire collection will be unpacked, photographed if needed, inventoried and then probably ultimately re-packed for storage... But I will finally know where everything is.

Hopefully I can put everything in one ridiculous stack/pile and photograph it. Cool

A couple of upsides to all of this:

If I've promised a manual scan, box photograph, game photograph, video of playback, ANYTHING where my excuse was 'it's in storage, I'll do it when I find it', that time has come... This won't be happening for a few weeks, but feel free to send me a reminder of anything you might have asked for. (Try to refrain from NEW requests for now though. If I do plan to re-photo/scan everything anyway, I'll make it all available when it's finished, or as I go.)

I will also know, once and for all, if I do have a manual for certain games, another part of my inventory list that has gotten out of date. I'm also likely to scan all of them, regardless of language, just to have them on file in some form... The only exception will be sealed games. I still won't open a sealed game, but that's not too much of the collection.

I'm also liable to find things I want to sell. Probably nothing especially rare, but I know I have 2 or 3 of some games that I bought for better looking boxes or whatever (or in same cases, actually forgot I already had it... Rolling Eyes )

I'm actually kind of excited about going through everything... Some of these games I haven't seen in years... And hopefully it will lead to a lot of photos on the website being updated to larger, better quality ones. I can even do print-quality scans of boxes if anyone wants to try to re-produce a box for a certain game...

It'll be kind of an interesting experience, I'll be posting some pics of it all as I go. Also, anyone that can make it to Las Vegas on the weekend of Aug 11-12, I'll be displaying a large portion of the collection in a museum on display during the Classic Gaming Expo convention. Going through all of this will allow me to get to some games that may have never made it to CGE in the past.
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GameWatchGuy
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 09 Feb 2012
Last Visit: 29 Mar 2013
Posts: 110
Location: Pigeon Forge TN

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi.
Looking forward to it BIG TIME!

Sounds very time consuming, but fun. It would be cool if I lived closer and could help ya organize it, over a few beers maybe.

If your gonna sell any game watches shoot me an email... Wink

~John
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vcoleiro1
Tiger Jawbreaker


Joined: 08 Jan 2012
Last Visit: 07 Jul 2020
Posts: 221

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes please, lots of pics would be great, would great to see the Rik collection.

And yes, we will all be interested in doubles you want to sell, be sure to post a list of those.
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kisember
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 10 Sep 2007
Last Visit: 27 Feb 2024
Posts: 98
Location: Hungary

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do you already have a protocol or plan how to store them both physicaly and virtualy?

Do you place them into hard plastic boxes? I guess it makes easier to stock pile them and might cheaper than having a lot of shelves. Would they transparent or opaque? Do you put silica gel to absorb humidity, or rather not to avoid drying out? How securely you close them? We saw some terrible pictures last year from Australian flood.
I've see a note on a game museum site that they participate on a project to research what is the best way to keep the condition of electonic games.

What about 'virtual collection'? How do you track which game needs to be 'upgraded', or what is missing from a series? Do you have something more sophisticated than 'Do I have this?' at the museum pages? How to track the location (which box in whic room) of the games?
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I store them, for the most part, packed in very sturdy boxes. (Most of them are stored in Apple G4 and G5 boxes. Heavy, double-thick cardboard with a wax/plastic coating on the outside that makes them water proof. Probably wouldn't survive being a puddle, but can moved in the rain and don't have to worry about spilling anything on the boxes).

Boxes are packed so that closing any of the lids doesn't actually touch any of the games packed inside. Then a layer of foam sheets or packing bubbles placed on top. Games are also packed carefully and padded if necessary so there's no movement of the games inside the box. I can turn it sideways, even upside-down, and nothing will shift inside the box. When these boxes are stacked, most of the weight is on the corners/edges, so they can be stacked at least 6 boxes high without harming anything in the bottom box. (And it helps that they aren't really that heavy.) 6 is the limit due to the height of the storage facility... Cool Storage is climate controlled, so humidity isn't a problem, and it's not on the ground floor, so flooding isn't a problem (not the top floor either, so rain leaks would hopefully not make it to my unit either). Short of the place collapsing in an earthquake, it's about as secure as it can get...

I have a couple of plastic bins as well, and have thought about using them, but I don't like all the wasted space between them and inside them if packing rectangular game boxes.. You can't seem to find plastic bins that are perfect cubes, they always taper in. I'd probably loose 1/4 of my storage space overall if I used them. And, they are actually weaker than the boxes... All the weight on them when stacked is in the center of the lids, not the stronger walls of the container. And the slightest shock seems to crack them. Don't really like them. Not too bad for loose games, with each game wrapped separately in bubble wrap or something.

Here's a couple of lines from my inventory sheet:
Bandai- Crazy Climber..............[C/V/I/b/P]
Coleco- Pac Man (Canada).........[C/V/I/B/P].....9
Tiger- Miner 2049er (LCD rot)....[c/V/ /B/P]
Tomy- Drive Yourself Crazy........[C/V/-/B/-].....10

In the spread sheet, they are spaced out the items in [] are in a column...
C= Console
V= Battery Cover
I= Instructions
B= Box
P= Packing materials
If I have it, and it's in good condition, it's listed with a capital letter
If I have it, and it's damaged in some way (or simply could be improved), lower-case letter
If I don't have it, I leave the space blank
If the game never came with it, there's a - in the space.
So you can see my Bandai Crazy Climber has a bad battery cover (probably a clip broken off), and Miner 2049er has a bad console (and the problem is described- LCD rot, that condition where the LCD is black or darkened when turned off).
I don't have the instructions for Miner 2049er and Tomy's Drive Yourself Crazy is just packed by itself in a box, with instructions printed on the box, so the fields for instructions and packing material are marked with -'s
And if it's game I really want, but don't have, I'll just list it with [ / / / / ] so I'll remember it's really on my 'wants' list.

The numbers following the line (9 and 10) are the numbers of the box that the game is stored in. If it's not marked, it's location is either unknown (very frequent now), or it's on 'permanent' display on the small amount of shelving I have in my room.

The website just lists 'Do I have this?' because people kept assuming I owned every game on the site, and would ask questions about games I didn't have... Mr. Green And it's out of date too, as I have purchased some games, and sold others and forgot to update the museum page. I'm likely going to be removing that line from the pages anyway.

Two problems arose:
I'd take my games to Classic Gaming Expo (and a couple of times to E3) to display them for the public in a museum they set up for the show. At the end of the show, we are in kind of a rush to pack up everything and get out. So while everything is nicely inventoried going in, when I get in a hurry I just start stuffing things in boxes to get it out of there... There's been 3 or 4 years of that since the last time I tried to organize the collection... So even though two games are listed in box 9 and 10 above, it's likely that they aren't really in those boxes. Rolling Eyes

Problem two- laziness... Compounded with the knowledge that all my games are shuffled in storage, when I'd get new games in I just wouldn't bother listing them in the spreadsheet at all (thus the occasional accidental dual purchase of a game..). I'd get lazy about photographing, and then get too many piled up at home and just throw them in a box and store them, without even writing down what is in the box...

I use my eBay spreadsheet now more than anything to see if I have a game (a list of everything I've ever bought/sold on eBay, what I paid (or got) for it, who sold it and when... That's kind of an impressive list to read through sometimes. Cool ) But that doesn't help if it's something I didn't buy on eBay, or if it was a 'lot of 20 games'... So I'm way overdue for a good 'spreading out' of the collection, and I figured I'd make it sort of a 'forum event'... In as much as that can be done...


Last edited by Rik on Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:16 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kisember wrote:
I've see a note on a game museum site that they participate on a project to research what is the best way to keep the condition of electonic games.


Where'd you see this? That might be interesting to read (or even participate in...)
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kisember
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 10 Sep 2007
Last Visit: 27 Feb 2024
Posts: 98
Location: Hungary

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rik wrote:
kisember wrote:
I've see a note on a game museum site that they participate on a project to research what is the best way to keep the condition of electonic games.


Where'd you see this? That might be interesting to read (or even participate in...)

I bet it was here, but I have no time to find it. Let us know if you can investigate something on this topic.
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GameHoarder
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 25 May 2010
Last Visit: 26 Nov 2021
Posts: 75
Location: Minnesota USA

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't post much as I live mostly "between the cracks of society" simply put. But I do read what others write in this forum as I have a great thirst for information that is or may be of interest to me.

I have put thought into what is the best reasonable way to store my many collections as I collect more then just older video game and related items.

I also don't think much of the plastic totes and such they sell for the same reasons that others don't. They are not very strong and not "square" so they waste space. They also cost more then they are worth.

I use mostly banana boxes for storing my game collection and other collections in that require a strong large size box as they are free and strong. I can stack them 8 high and still have room at the tops of the stacks for low profile boxes.

I cut up large boxes for use in the bottoms and tops of the banana boxes so that I have a solid bottom and top. For the small round air holes and handhold holes in the sides of them I use salvaged damaged (of little collector value) soda pop and tobacco advertising poster board that I have piles of that I cut to fit the inside sides of the banana boxes secured with a bit of tape where needed. I can still pick up the full boxes with the handhold holes with the tips of my fingers if needed.

As of now I don't use much packing in many of the boxes as the boxes are not moved around much and I'm still sorting through many of the boxes trying to get things better organized. I will use plastic baggies of assorted sizes for containing loose handhelds and games and what ever else fits and some bubble wrap where needed.

I have well over 300 banana boxes full of game items as well as hundreds of other strong boxes that produce or computers and such come in. I'm always on the lookout for nice boxes that I can use. I will also custom make boxes for larger items that won't fit in the box selections I use.

But I'm still looking for a better storage container solution that is reasonably priced, or free would be better as then I have more money to buy more toys to fill even more boxes Laughing

As for keeping track of what I have or taking pictures of. Haven't gotten to that as of yet as there is only so much time in a day or energy to be used. So I haven't much of a clue as to just what all I have. Keep wanting to take pictures and make lists "someday". But I have the same problem as others, not enough room to do it all right. But I'm working on that, boy am I Yessss!
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